First Quality a family-owned enterprise with more than 3,000 employees

ANDERSON - The company behind the single-largest economic development announcement in the history of Anderson County was founded just two decades ago by about half a dozen workers.

First Quality Enterprises, a paper-products company based in Great Neck, N.Y., announced billion-dollar plans Friday to bring a tissue-and-towel manufacturing plant to the former BASF-Shaw site on Masters Boulevard in Anderson.

The family-owned business has grown steadily and diversified since 1990, and now employs more than 3,000 workers.

The Damaghi family still owns the company and its members fill key leadership and managerial roles.

Nasser Damaghi is the company chairman, and as interim county administrator Rusty Burns described it, when the corporation has a meeting, "it's three brothers, a nephew and a father sitting around a table."

First Quality's range of products includes paper towels, toilet paper, diapers and feminine-hygiene items. The company markets some of those products under its own Prevail brand and produces some as private-label products for several big-box chain stores.

Anderson County leaders and members of the state delegation visited one of the company's Pennsylvania plants in December to learn about its operations.

In Anderson, the company has already held interviews in the county's economic-development office to find workers for key managerial positions, Burns said.

Company spokesman Frank Ludovina said the corporation's first phase of production here should begin by the third quarter of next year.

The Anderson site's nearness to rail service was a key attraction for the company; First Quality can choose from CSX Corporation or Norfolk Southern to transport the wallboard that is used to make its paper products.

Ludovina also said a "pro-business environment" in the county and state and a "very favorable package of incentives" brought the company to the Upstate.